China is not a new actor in Sudan and Chinese interests in Sudanese resources compete with those of many international stakeholders. Their recent large-scale interventions in the land-based resource systems of oil, water and agriculture dramatically impact on the livelihoods of thousands of nomads and farmers (cf. Large & Patey 2011, Pantuliano 2010).

This chapter adds to recent studies by reviewing official documents, scientific publications, and corporate information published in Chinese and by analysing how they discuss large-scale projects. It focuses on Chinese interventions that are shaping settlement, farming and grazing land in Sudan. As previous scholarship has shown, the introduction of Chinese technologies and capital in combination with the coercive power of the authoritarian Sudanese regime has contributed to the upheaval of the traditional land use system since the mid-1990s. The implementation of large-scale oil and hydro-infrastructure has left visible and at times nearly irreversible imprints upon land (Verhoeven 2011a, Grawert & Andrä 2013). Similarly, agro-businesses managed by the Sudan Government and foreign investors are currently transforming Sudanese agriculture (see Umbadda in Chapter 2).